


Cultural Gap

by often_adamanta



Category: Integrate - Thea Hayworth
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien/Human Relationships, Drinking, M/M, Miscommunication, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 14:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/often_adamanta/pseuds/often_adamanta
Summary: cultural gap,noun: differences between two cultures that prevent mutual understanding





	Cultural Gap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etben](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/gifts).



> Thanks to my awesome beta, [Chaneen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaneen/pseuds/chaneen)!! And happy holidays, Etben! :D

Sezin’s catching up with his never ending pile of paperwork and ignoring increasingly ridiculous comm messages from Hrran about how unattractive pining is when his phone buzzes again. 

He almost leaves it -- Hrran can sink all the way to the ocean floor as far as Sezin is concerned, he’s not pining while Gavin’s out drinking with Bowman and the other humans from Forensics -- but the slim possibility that it could be from Gavin makes him pause and tap his comm to display the message. 

It’s not from his clansib, thank god, but it’s not from Gavin, either. It’s from Bowman. 

_Can you come down to the bar?_ his comm reads. _Gavin’s a little drunk and needs help getting home._

Sezin is up and throwing on his jacket almost before he finishes reading it. He knows Bowman would have called dispatch if it was an emergency, not messaged him, but he can’t help it. They’ve been bonded for six months and partners for much longer, and in all that time, he’s never seen Gavin more than pleasantly tipsy. He has to be much drunker than that for Bowman to call him. 

_On my way,_ Sezin sends back as he strides down the hall. Downstairs and out of the police station, it’s a few short blocks over to the bar Gavin had mentioned offhand when he left. 

The bar is integrated and frequented by the department. A type of human music that hirsa generally enjoy plays a little too loud, and two Brightreef hirsa are working behind the bar serving the mostly human crowd. One is pouring out shots for a group of giggling cadets, out of uniform but still recognizable, and the other is mixing drinks and setting them in front of a dark haired man gesturing a little carelessly in the press of bodies. 

Gavin. 

The Brightreef bartender notices him as he crosses the room, flicking the ridges of her helm up and down again, tight to her skull, a sign of respect for his mark on Gavin. He signals acknowledgement, a subtle and polite wave of his own helm, unworried since he’d already seen her keeping a respectful distance from Gavin. 

She smiles slyly and says something to Gavin that Sezin can’t hear over the noise of the bar. 

Gavin turns, blue eyes wide, a smile cresting across his face. As Sezin gets closer, he can see how pink Gavin’s cheeks and lips are, distractingly so. 

“Sezin!” Gavin calls, grabbing his arm when he’s near enough and pulling him the final step. “I didn’t know you were coming!” Gavin lets go of the bartop and sways, and Sezin finds himself supporting most of Gavin’s weight. “Waaaait,” he says, drawing out the word as his smile breaks, leaving a frown in its wake. “It’s human night, so you’re not supposed to be here.” Gavin’s eyes narrow, and Sezin can’t read it exactly, but he can see the temperature of the expression go colder. “Are you checking up on me?” 

Sezin doesn’t know what about that idea is upsetting Gavin. As far as he understands, checking up on something is to ascertain that it’s well, but it’s clear that Gavin means something else by it, something bad, yet another human reference or linguistic quirk that escapes him. 

Before he can decide how to respond, Bowman interrupts. “That was fast,” he observes, seemingly unsurprised, and gathers the drinks that Gavin had abandoned behind him. He nods politely to the Brightreef bartender, who’s been watching their reunion with a hand over her mouth hiding a grin. 

“You’re cut off,” Bowman says to Gavin when he twists around to look at his friend. “I asked Sezin to come take you home.” 

Gavin pouts. “I’m fine.” 

“Is he, though?” Sezin asks. 

Bowman gives him an amused look. “He’s drunk.” 

“I’m fine,” Gavin repeats. 

“On purpose?” Sezin asks doubtfully, unable to keep from sweeping his eyes around the room looking for a threat.

“Oh,” Bowman says in sudden understanding of Sezin’s worry. “Not really. Next time make sure he doesn’t skip lunch and dinner before he comes out drinking.” 

He hadn’t realized that food would dampen the effects of alcohol, but it makes sense. He files that away, the human ritual of eating before a night out taking on new meaning.

Sezin returns his attention to Gavin, who appears even more flushed than before. “You skipped lunch?” he asks. Gavin bites his lower lip and attempts innocence, looking up through his eyelashes, a move that only works because Sezin finds it so appealing, not because he’s ever fooled. He sighs, longsuffering. 

Bowman chuckles. “Get him dinner. Make him hydrate. He’ll be fine.” 

“I _am_ fine,” Gavin says petulantly. 

Bowman raises his eyebrows. “So you don’t want Sezin to take you home?” 

“I didn’t say that,” Gavin replies slowly, as if realizing he’s walked into a trap but not sure how to get out of it again. 

Bowman shakes his head and grabs the drinks waiting on the counter. “Have a good weekend!” he calls, heading back to a full table scrupulously avoided by the hirsa nearby. 

“So,” Gavin says, and Sezin looks back down at him. His expression is wicked. “I guess you have to take me home, then. Doctor’s orders.” 

The Brightreef bartender smothers a laugh, but it escapes subsonic, audible to him even over the crowd. She’s carefully cleaning glasses when Sezin looks up at her. 

“Let’s go,” he says to Gavin and manages to get them out of the crowd without either of them touching anyone. 

He buys takeout on the way at a kabob place Gavin loves that Sezin doesn’t usually go for, because as tasty as it is, he’ll be smelling it for the next few days. At least they’re headed to Gavin’s apartment, which they can avoid until the smell dies down. It’s been slowly emptying out in favor of Sezin’s larger place, but staying there seems prudent tonight given how much closer it is and the way Gavin is hanging off of him as they walk. 

He gets Gavin a large glass of water when they get in, setting it on the small kitchen table with a thunk and a stern look. Gavin smiles at him, lips pressed together as he chews a bite from the single container he’d worked open. Sezin opens the others, and Gavin falls on the food as if he hasn't eaten in over twelve hours. A fact, Sezin reminds himself, which is unfortunately true. 

Sezin eats at a more reserved pace, distracted by observing Gavin. He’d put Gavin’s clinging down to a lack of balance on the way home, but he doesn’t think that’s the whole explanation. Gavin is pressing close and in constant contact with him, their knees pressed together even now with Gavin distracted by food. He wonders if this behavior is more naturally Gavin, stripped of any concern for hirsa propriety regarding touch. 

He’s relieved to see that Gavin is steadier after dinner, although still noticeably under the influence. Gavin walks over to the couch under his own power, but Sezin refills the water glass anyway and brings it over.

Gavin drinks half the water in one steady pull and then sets it aside. “What should we do tonight? Swim?” 

“We’re at your place,” Sezin reminds him. 

“Oh yeah,” Gavin says with a disinterested glance around. He tugs Sezin down next to him on the couch, basically crawling into his lap when Sezin sits. “I guess we’ll have to find something else to do.” 

Sezin doesn’t say anything, interested in what Gavin will do, but he rests a hand on Gavin’s thigh, unable to keep from touching. 

“You must really love me if you got me kabobs,” Gavin continues, grinning like he usually does when he’s aiming for a kiss, but instead loosens Sezin’s tie enough to open the top two buttons of his shirt. He presses his thumb along Sezin’s neck. It’s a pulse point, a vulnerability on a human, but for hirsa it’s just sensitive. Sezin gasps quietly, like he always does when Gavin pulls that move, and Gavin’s grin widens. 

“And finished the paperwork on the Mackenzie case,” Sezin adds, because he’d had time to submit the last form before Bowman messaged him.

“Kabobs and finished paperwork,” Gavin repeats. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been this attracted to you.” 

“It’s probably the alcohol,” Sezin snorts. “But I am surprised you’re up for this tonight.” 

“Hey, I didn’t drink anywhere near enough for whisky dick, okay?” 

“What’s whisky dick?” Sezin asks. He can guess based on the context, but asking gets Gavin’s nose wrinkled up in suppressed laughter. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Gavin says and wiggles a little closer, one of those liquid full body movements that appeals to the animal part of Sezin’s brain that expects tentacles when he looks at his partners. 

“Don’t worry about your dick?” Sezin says, and Gavin laughs out loud this time. “That’s not the kind of ‘up for it’ I meant, anyway,” Sezin explains, having been exposed to this expression fairly early on in their partnership, before he had any particular interest in the state of Gavin’s dick. “You were angry.” 

“I’m not angry,” Gavin says. 

“Good,” Sezin says. He tries to let it go, but not knowing has never been one of his strengths. “You were, though.” 

“No?” Gavin says, confused. “What would I be mad about?”

“I don’t know,” Sezin says, “but you were when I got to the bar.” 

Gavin’s mouth drops open as it dawns on him, but he doesn’t say anything. He closes his mouth and opens it again, then hesitates. He licks his lips, an obvious tell that he’s stalling. “I can’t tell if I’m too drunk or not drunk enough for this conversation.” 

“Conversation?” Sezin asks, alarmed. 

Gavin waves that off, shifting again so that he’s settled, looking up from a comfortable sprawl across Sezin’s lap. “I just misunderstood, because I didn’t know Bowman had talked to you.” 

That doesn’t explain what the misunderstanding had been, though. “I shouldn’t have joined you when I wasn’t invited?” he guesses. 

“No, that’s not…” Gavin trails off, frustrated. “I mean, it wouldn’t be great to show up without warning me on humans only night, but the problem was that I knew you wouldn’t.” 

Sezin flares his helm ridges in confusion before remembering that Gavin likely couldn’t read that cue and lowering them again. 

“I was with the Forensic team, and I know you can’t stand the way they smell, so you wouldn’t have just dropped in to join us for a drink. So I thought you were checking up on me.” 

The phrase in and of itself doesn’t make any more sense this time around, but he understands Gavin enough to reason out the shape of the thing from the way he’s laid it out. “You thought I was going where you said you’d be,” Sezin says slowly, “As if you’d given me an alibi, and I had to see for myself that you were telling the truth.” 

“Yeah,” Gavin says with a sigh. “Which is a shitty thing to do.” 

“I wouldn’t do that, though,” Sezin assures him. “I trust you.” 

Gavin reaches out and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. “I know. But occasionally, I misread your behavior. It’s not a big deal. It’s little culture clashes, and usually I can think through them and not react, but, well, alcohol.” Gavin smiles, a little too self-deprecating. 

Sezin squeezes their fingers together, careful even though his talons are filed down to nubs, and thinks about the particular assumption that Gavin dove right into. “Is that a common thing human partners do?” 

“So like, they shouldn’t,” Gavin explains with a frown, “But there’s an unfortunately large number of men that want control instead of an equal partnership. And it’s a red flag for that kind of thing.” 

“I see,” he says, but it’s a surface understanding. He can sense the water here runs deep, but not how to navigate through it without setting off Gavin’s instinctive alarm. “What are the other red flags?” Sezin asks. “So I know not to do those.” 

Gavin winces. 

“I already have been,” Sezin interprets, trying fruitlessly to think of what else it could be. 

“I mean, sometimes,” Gavin concedes, “but you’re not doing anything wrong.” He runs his free hand over his face. “It’s stupid little things. Like, you read messages off my comm sometimes. And you don’t let people touch me. In fact, you’ve actually pulled me out of the way a couple times. It’s not a big deal. I like that you’re protecting our mark! Just, if you were human, it would mean something different. You’re not, though, so sometimes I have to process that.” Gavin shifts their hands so that his thumb can rub circles in the thick skin of Sezin's palms. “You can’t tell me you don’t sometimes run into the same problem.” 

“No, I--” Sezin starts automatically, but then cuts off at Gavin’s deeply skeptical expression. In truth, he knows what Gavin means. He knows Gavin would never cheat, but occasionally what’s friendly for a human translates into a behavior that would be seductive on hirsa. Also Gavin never reacts to touch like he expects, too cavalier with strangers and hirsa from other clans and then reticent with Sezin’s Scald clansibs. “Okay, yes. At times. But it’s nothing I need or want you to change.” 

“Same,” Gavin agrees with a shrug. “It’s just something to deal with, I think. Part of what it means to have a partner from another species.” 

Sezin nods, satisfied they’ve worked through things, but then stops. There’s one thing he doesn’t get, and he can’t help but tilt his head as he asks, “It bothers you when I read your comm?” 

Gavin laughs. “Oh man,” he says, and then has to pause to laugh some more before continuing. “I’m sorry, you don’t know why that’s funny. I asked Bowman about it once, and he gave me the same expression. Just, totally boggled.” Sezin files the word ‘boggled’ away, another word closer to knowing all of Gavin. “I think it must be an Earth thing since no one here cares. It’s a big no-no back there.”

Sezin hmms, subsonics that Gavin will only feel where they’re pressed together, and waits. Gavin hardly ever talks about his life on Earth. 

After a short silence, when it’s clear he’s not going talk about Earth now, either, Sezin shrugs one shoulder in a mimic of the way Gavin does sometimes when he acknowledges something but doesn’t have anything to add. He uses the movement as cover to uncoil a single dorsal arm, winding it down his sleeve so that it can slip out like the first time he’d marked Gavin. The midnight blue and black is stark against the cuff of his shirt. He twines it around their joined hands. 

“Oh, hey,” Gavin greets it, smiling sweet as the tentacle coils around the thin skin of his wrist. “That’s right, this terrible conversation interrupted something fun, didn’t it. Where were we again?” 

“You were explaining whisky dick,” Sezin deadpans. 

“Sounds boring,” Gavin says, refusing to be baited. “I’ve got a better idea. How about a nonverbal communication exercise?” He lifts their hands and swipes his tongue, soft and broad and pink, across the surface of Sezin’s tentacle. 

Sezin groans and pulls him into a kiss. This is one area where they’ve always understood each other, but he won’t argue against another round to prove it.


End file.
